Green coffee?

The Jakarta Post ,  Jakarta   |  Fri, 05/23/2008 6:45 PM  |  Greenlifestyle

Notice the mermaids and other symbols of coffee culture spreading across Jakarta? As café franchises continue to colonize the capital, it’s not just the smell of roasted beans that wafts through the air, but also the stench of tons of trash.

Cups, stirring sticks, napkins, plastic cutlery, empty sugar sachets, there’s enough refuse to make any self-respecting greenie choke on her grande skimmed milk cappuccino. And at more than Rp 20,000 a pop, that’s a terrible shame.

Saturday, 8:30 a.m., Kuningan. Unshaven and unconcerned, Don ambles into Big Durian Café with a copy of the Weekender in his hand. He sidles up to the counter and orders his favorite, an iced double mint mocha decaf skim latté and blueberry cheesecake, which will accompany his morning read.

At Green Control Central, the alarm bells are already ringing. The latté is served in a plastic cup with a futuristic dome, plus straw, and the cutlery that comes with the cake is made of plastic. But we hold off on sending in the Green Squad; Don can still redeem himself as he approaches the condiment counter.

Will he? A plastic stirring stick makes itself useful for about five seconds, before joining a few hundred others in the trash can. A sugar sachet is opened, emptied and discarded. And then three (three!) napkins are carried over to the table where Don will peruse his magazine, leaving a trail of waste behind him.

OK, Don hasn’t exactly redefined environmental evil. But multiply the seemingly innocent act of visiting a local café some ten thousand times over the whole city and the heap of non-recycled trash generated by the coffee scene takes on some pretty horrendous proportions. As usual, addressing the problem is dead simple and does not require either you or Don to give up your morning caffeine fix.

Coffee doesn’t taste better in a Styrofoam or plastic cup.
Rather than go for the single-use, mini-lifespan cup that will add to the 6,000 tons of garbage generated every 24 hours in Jakarta, just ask the barista to serve your beverage in a mug. Some brave souls even bring their own mug from home, but at Greenlifestyle we are aware that this can lead to some odd questions (although it’s a great conversation starter).

Want to stir? Ask for a spoon (and not a plastic one).
The quintessential built-in-obsolescent item, the stirring stick has a career of about five seconds before being tossed away. Meanwhile, a metallic spoon will gladly do the same task over and over again without ending up decorating Jakarta Bay.

Straws are passé.
As green fashionistas, we reserve the right to make such statements, especially when straws are acknowledged to be an environmental nuisance. Whatever happened to drinking from the cup, anyway? Start saving on those straws and take more plastic out of the waste process.

Metallic cutlery is only outlawed on some planes.
So, it’s perfectly OK to say no to a flimsy plastic knife and fork that will only be used for a few minutes.

Napkins are not going extinct.
Actually, we suspect that Don will survive just fine using only one. Less paper used, less trees cut down, less waste in the landfill. And the cheesecake will be just as good (if not tastier than usual).

You don’t need 30 chili sauce sachets with your order. Honest.
Some clerks give you piles of chili sauce sachets with your order, as if your life depended on spicing up your snack. Rather than get into a lengthy discussion on wrappings and garbage, you say nothing and once you’re home, just dump the stuff in the trash. Now how about having that discussion, and keeping it short?

+Illustration by Modina Rimolfa

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